


Beyond All Repair

by hebravelyranaway



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Past Character Death, Prison, Solitary Confinement, Thor: The Dark World Spoilers, War Crimes, discussion of punishment, possible triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-02-25
Packaged: 2018-03-15 01:52:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hebravelyranaway/pseuds/hebravelyranaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, there is no going back, because there is nothing left to go back to.  Odin and Loki find this out the hard way. Or *spoilers* Odin and Loki try to find some kind of common ground after Loki comes back from the Dark World.  It's kind of hard when one of them threw the other in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond All Repair

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Loki or Odin, or any of the Marvel movies. Marvel and Disney do, and I'm not making any profit off of this story.

**Beyond all Repair**

 

Loki stepped into the light just as Odin opened his eyes.  The old man's eyes widened and he automatically reached for Gungir, but his hand met empty air. Odin's gaze cut sharply to the glowing golden barrier of his cell, and, freezing with realization, he began to take in his new surroundings wearily. Loki could tell, by the expression on his face, that he had realized that he must be in one of the forgotten areas of the dungeons that had long been abandoned for more modern holding cells.

"Looking for this?" Loki asked mildly, holding out Gungir in front of him.  Odin's eyes narrowed in rage.

"How dare you?!  That weapon is only worthy of those who would protect the realms, and you have proven yourself unworthy of it time and time again."

"Yes, well, unlike Thor's hammer, you never actually put a spell on it to that effect, so I can use it just as well as you can.  A little over confident, were you, that no one could ever take your weapon from you?"

"…What do you plan to do with me, Loki, now that you have the opportunity to get your revenge?  Are you going to kill me?" Odin asked, his voice, far from the deep commanding baritone he remembered the All-Father having when he was younger, suddenly that of a bone-tired old man. 

He shot a sneering look at the deposed king, trying and only partially succeeding at concealing the rage and betrayal he felt whenever he laid eyes on him, now.  Odin had disowned him, would have had him _killed_ , if Frigga had not intervened.  Sure, he had done some things—some things that—but if Odin had ever truly loved him, he wouldn't have—

Loki swallowed hard, cutting those thoughts off sharply before he could go down that road again.  They would most likely do the opposite of helping him keep his composure in front of the All-Father.  He hadn't cried in front of him since he had fallen from the Bifrost, even when he'd sentenced him to four thousand years of solitary confinement, and he'd be damned if he started now.

He sighed with feigned nonchalance. 

"I've found that I've become weary of being a kinslayer, father.  Mother's death has taught me that, no matter how much I _hate_ you, you are my family.  As much as I loath to admit it, I could not stand to lose any more family members."

Something like hope sparked in Odin's eyes then, and oh, how _Loki_ _hoped_ he could quash it. 

"So you will spare Thor your wrath?"

His eyes narrowed.  Of _course_ he would only be concerned about Thor.  That's all he ever cared about.

"I will not _touch_ Thor.  I did not risk my life multiple times to save him and your future _daughter in-law_ just to kill him later myself.  Besides, he, unlike you, never wanted me dead!"

Odin just looked back at him stonily.

"Thank you."

"I'm not doing it for you.  I'm doing it because I owe him.  I tried to kill him—half-heartedly, I'll admit—so many times, and still he could not bear to think of me as anything else but his brother on Svartalfheim, no matter what he said to me when he first let me out.  _He_ didn't disown me.  He didn't _give up_ on me—"

"Is that what someone must do to prove their love to you, Loki?  Forgive you for mass-murder?!" Odin interrupted, his voice regaining some of its old power with the strength of his rage.  "I _did_ love you as my own, Loki, but that was one thing I could not do, and it was easier to think of you as dead, because then I wouldn't have to admit that the sweet little boy I raised was the same person as the mad, spiteful creature you are now!  You made me wish I had just left you in the snow to die because whatever innocent blood is on your hands is now on mine, too!  That is the thanks I get for saving your ungrateful life!"

Loki stumbled back against the wall opposite Odin's cell, gasping, feeling as if he had been physically pushed away from his father with the force of his condemnation.

"I was not in my right mind!" he screamed, and then stared at the All-father in astonishment, stunned and ashamed at his own admission.  "You would have me pay the rest of my life for something I did while I was—" he choked on the bitter truth for a moment— "while I was less than sane?"

"Thousands of humans already paid for what you did in your madness," he growled.  "It's only right that you should pay your debt to them with your life."

"Yes, because what is _one more_ _life_ , father?" Loki sneered, suddenly wishing with all he was that he had not sworn an oath to himself that he would die before he caused the death of another one of his family members.  Damn Frigga for dying on him and making him _feel_.  Damn Thor for giving him hope that there might be something other than hatred between them one day, that despite everything, they might still be brothers. 

Odin shot him a piercing look, ignoring his cutting words with the ease of long practice.

"Loki, you _still_ aren't in your right mind.  You _do_ know that, don't you?  You are a danger to everyone you come in contact with, you have proven it time and time again, and you need to be locked away for the safety of everyone else, if not for revenge." 

Frigga's face flashed through his mind momentarily, and he couldn't stop himself from flinching. His fists clenched and he bared his teeth at Odin in a feral growl. 

"Don't you _dare_!  You would not be here, none of Asgard or the rest of the Nine Realms would be standing were it not for Thor and me.  Do not give the danger I might present to others as a legitimate reason why I should submit myself to being confined to a cage for millennia!  I saved more people than I killed a thousand of times over just by killing Kurse, and you know it."

"Life isn't a balancing act, Loki.  It doesn't work that way!"

"Oh, I know it isn't.  Not when it comes to _me_ , at least.  Thor, on the other hand—he sacrifices himself to save a few mortals, and he's instantly forgiven for killing possibly _hundreds_ of Frost Giants—but then again, _they_ don't really count as people anyway, do they?"

"Loki, he sacrificed his own life to redeem himself.  You evidently don't possess the necessary selflessness or understanding of your own crimes to do that, despite what you have tricked Thor into believing."

"And I suppose we're going to pretend that you even for a second intended Thor to die permanently from his little test of valor?" Loki nodded decisively as if he had already received an answer, and rubbed his hands together in sarcastic imitation of a getting-down-to-business gesture.  " _Alright_ , then.  Let's examine the rest of your assertions, shall we?  There was no guarantee that my magic would save me when I allowed myself to become mortally wounded so that I could fake my death.  That branch of magic is a little _untried_ , you see.  As in: only one person's tried it, and that's me.  I wasn't sure I would survive it, and yet I still risked my life to save your son, and, incidentally, everyone else in the Nine.  Dying in battle in defense of those I…I betrayed… would have been far preferable to the fate you sentenced me to, in any case."

Odin sighed.

"If that is true, then I'll admit that your motives weren't as entirely selfish as I first thought, but if _you_ admit that you've done wrong, that you have something to make up for, you _have_ to take responsibility for your crimes."

"I _have_ to, do I?" he snapped, balling his hands into fists at his sides so that Odin wouldn't see they were shaking. 

"Loki, even if you _don't_ consider the matter of responsibility, your powers give you domain over _chaos_.  With your mind ill, they aren't manifesting themselves through harmless pranks, but through war and bloodshed.  You are still a danger to everyone around you right now even if you don't mean to be.  Please do the right thing and turn yourself in."

Loki laughed humorlessly.

"Do the _right thing_ … Do you _really_ expect me to believe, father, that you'll release me when I'm fully sane again, give me a second chance?  …Or that indefinite solitary confinement will actually help my sanity?  Imprisonment gave me time to recover from my time in the void at first, yes, but the only reason I didn't go _more_ insane by the end of it is because mother visited my cell _without your consent_ as an illusion."

He shook his head, backing away in horror from the All-Father without meaning to as the memory of it overwhelmed him for a moment.

"No, I hope you grow comfortable in your cell, father, because it will be the only thing you'll see in a while.  Maybe then you'll get the sense of what you would have condemned me to.  Maybe then, you'll know what it's like to be forgotten!  I would much rather have been executed as a traitor than condemned to rotting away in that cell for the rest of my days, forced to live with the knowledge that my family had written me out of their lives to the extent that they wouldn't even let me attend mother's funeral!"

"You didn't deserve to see her, and you certainly didn't deserve to mourn her with the rest of us!  You lost the privilege of being treated as her family, of having rights as an Asgardian, Loki _Laufeyson_ , when you decided to slaughter helpless mortals like your butcher of a father before you!"

Loki paled.  He supposed, he thought faintly, that he should be happy he had finally provoked father enough to get an honest response out of him, but he just felt the type of numb, tired resignation that you could only feel after your heart had been broken one too many times.

"Fine.  Fine!" he laughed humorlessly.  "If that's the way you want it, then you will be treated the same, forgotten in a dark corner of the dungeons for the rest of your days and left to rot!"

"You don't think anyone will notice I'm missing?  Unlike you, people might actually _miss me_ when I'm gone, you ungrateful wretch!"

"Somehow, I doubt they'll notice anything at all, Odin All-Father, Blind One and _King of All Hypocrites_ ," he hissed as a green light started to spread over his form, until suddenly, to Odin's horror, he was looking at an exact replica of himself.  "People can be so unobservant, _especially your one remaining son_."

"Don't you _touch_ him!" he growled.

"Oh, you still don't understand.  I won't _need_ to.  He'll give up the throne without any help from me."

"What are you _talking_ about, fiend?!"

"Nothing more than that he will want to live with Jane on Midgard, of course," he said innocently.  "And even if that wasn't true, he has become a better man than either you or me.  The true hero you," he gave a humorless laugh, and several silent tears fell from his eyes, "no, _we,_ always hoped he would become.  What use has a man like that for a throne?"

Odin bared his teeth and growled at him in a way that was positively _animalistic_.  Once, it would have made Loki flinch away.  Once, when he hadn't already experienced the worst thing that Odin could do to him.

"Let me OUT of here!"

"You are never going to see the light of day again!" he said gleefully, unable to suppress hysterical giggles at the delicious irony of his words.  Tears streamed down his face once again, but they were from laughter.  They _had_ to be. "Thor is the only reason you still live, and I hope you remember his face well, because _you will never see him again_."

 


End file.
